Ecstasy in Pain

What Extreme Violence has on the table here, is brutal death metal with quite some influence from the more old school bands of the early to mid 90's, resulting in a style of death metal that has more traditional elements incorporated, with more attention given to execution and technical prowess than other bands in the brutal death metal style.

One name that kept popping up in my mind throughout is that of Cannibal Corpse, because of the fast riffing and straight forward and energetic battering approach to the percussion. Extreme Violence rips through a collection of varied tracks, delivering a dose of punishing brutal death inspired by (apart from the already mentioned Cannibal Corpse) the likes of Malevolent Creation, Broken Hope, Suffocation and Immolation. Alternating blastbeat frenzy with punishing groove and aggressive pounding velocity, the band work themselves through a varied set of songs, brought with energy and conviction, while being executed in truly magnificent manner. At times, the guitar work touches upon the more technical death metal bands, incorporating elements of Pestilence, Death and Gorguts at their early 90's best. When all brought together, this creates a solid slice of well-played and energetic death metal, fusing together brutality and technical proficiency in an awesome manner.

There is however one flaw to this pounding piece of solid death metal, and that is the fabricated and pretty edgeless production it has received. While the music on offer is brutal, rough and executed in excellent fashion, the guitars have somewhat of a lifeless feel to them, simply sounding just that bit too soft, something that blunts the impact of the menacing riffwork. This is not aided by the plastic sounding drums either. As a whole, the production has a weakening effect on what Extreme Violence has to offer, something that the band's intensity does not deserve. I can easily imagine this band being a veritable wrecking machine in a live setting, and that does not come out to the fullest on this album. Good thing that the awesome music makes up for a good part.

So yeah, while the music is great, it unfortunately gets diminished by a somewhat lackluster production that hampers it from really blowing up. If the soundmix had a little more of an organic feel to it, this stuff would've hit way harder. Don't let that deter you, though, because viewed in its entirety, this is still an absolutely solid piece of brutality, well worth the effort of checking out.